


S02E15

by daisiesinajar



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Compliant, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. References, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Spoilers, Death, Episode Tag, F/M, suicide mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 13:53:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4438010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisiesinajar/pseuds/daisiesinajar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The scene where Bobbi hands Izzy the Franny's Saloon keyring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	S02E15

**S02E15**

 

“Copy that Sir. I'm on my way."

It's not like she could have said anything else. Not to the director of the organisation she had dedicated her life to. Not in the middle of the largest invasion they'd ever faced. Not while people she'd known for years were suddenly pointing guns in her friends' faces.

Her friends. How could she have missed it? How could she not have known? She'd worked under them, alongside them, even guided some along, for years. But this isn't the time to second guess her judgment, because if she gets started, everything will fall apart like a house of cards, and foremost among them would be Hunter.

 _God, Hunter._  She swings a leg across the cradle of her bike and revs the engine, speeding off at a steep curve. She weaves in and out of traffic, gritting her teeth and trying to focus.  _Concentrate, Morse_. He would never forgive her-- not that it would matter; after today, there wouldn't be anything left of her to forgive. She swallows as she speeds past one red light after another, horns blaring from all sides in her ears.

Her phone rings and she risks a glance downward-- it's him. She tightens her grip on the handles, letting it ring on, her throat constricting as she blinks back tears. She can't afford to pick up his call, no matter how much she wants to hear his voice, to speak to him-- she tries, but she can't quite stop the one last time that plays in her head like a broken record. But pick up the call and she would probably get herself killed on the road, or worse-- her resolve might give way completely and she might go straight home to him, mission be damned, friends be--

No, she can't. She can't be selfish.

_"You have, one, new voice message."_

She gulps and plays it back before she can stop herself, hoping her focus on trying not to get hit by vehicles will mitigate the pain. It doesn’t.

"Hey sweetheart," his voice sounds cheerfully in her ears, and her heart clenches. "Look, I know you're busy right now, but I made your favourite chicken. This time I swear it's not burnt or raw or anything, I had Mum talk me through the whole thing-- Anyway. I'll wait up and warm it up for us when you're back yeah? I'll see you tonight love, don't die out there."

She chokes back a sob.  _I'm so sorry._

By the time she skids to a stop at the pier where Mack is waiting with a speedboat (four minutes after the order and at the other end of the city), she's schooled her face into a mask of nonchalance.

"Mack."

"Bobbi." He turns to start the engine, but stops and studies her face carefully at the last minute. "Are you--"

Bobbi gives a violent jerk of her head,  _Not now,_  and he nods. She gazes at the white foam behind them as they speed toward the ship, looking for all the world like she was watching out for tails (she was), and resisting the urge to call Hunter. She had no reason not to, the ship was another fifteen minutes out even going at the speed they were, but if she's honest with herself...

She wouldn't know what to say. What would she say, what  _could_ she say to the person she loved most when going on a suicide mission? Apologise for the chicken? If she were honest with herself and dug a little deeper, she knows what she has to apologise for: for choosing SHIELD over them. Loyalty to them over loyalty to him. For willing to die for SHIELD and not willing to live for him. She doesn’t know how to explain how the lives of many outweighed the life of one-- and definitely far,  _far_ outweighed her own. She doesn’t know how to explain that love felt selfish and loyalty felt selfless and even though she knew doing the selfless thing was being selfish to him, she just  _had_ to, it was more than about just her.

And she knows Hunter, knows he would yell, he would beg, he would commandeer a plane or grow wings to fly here and try to stop her. Whatever it took for her to come home safely with him, or if it came to it, to just be safe. Bob,  _please_ , he would say.  _Walk away_. Walk away,  _please_. The last time he'd asked her and she refused, she'd wound up with three bullets and a coma. She doesn’t know if she has the strength to say no to him this time, the strength to say goodbye.

Bobbi was nothing if not realistic, and testing her resolve when she knew it might break was not. So she steels herself, and her phone disappears with a soft plop into the water, buried beneath the white foam in the wake of the speeding boat.

-o-

Every shot she takes is one shot closer to death. She’s acutely aware of that. It’s strange how she can be entirely focused on the mission, on each target, on each bullet; and yet feel so detached, as if she’s floating and watching it all unravel below her.

“I love your whole thing, you know that?” Her lips quirk up at a corner as she watches Izzy shove a gun into her back pocket, taking in every move, every grimace. She’s never been good at goodbyes. How did you say goodbye to someone who’d saved your life countless times over?

She rattles off her plan to get Gonzales off the ship, makes sure Izzy nods, and then-- It’s now or never; her last chance to say goodbye to Hunter, her last chance to let him know that he was on her mind, right till the end; her last chance to say  _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry._

“And um,” she swallows, niggling her fingers up her tight-fitting sleeve to pull out the keyring that cost so little and meant so much. She feels the metal scrape against her skin, and it’s been pressed against her skin long enough that it would leave an imprint on her flesh, against her pulse-- the closest she could get to tattooing him on her heart.

She holds the keyring out to Izzy, throat tight, willing her lip not to tremble and tears not to fall. “Could you give this to Hunter?” Her voice is softer than she’d like, belying a vulnerability she seldom let show, but this was  _Izzy_. Her voice almost cracks on his name.

Izzy searches her eyes. “Bobbi,” she says softly, and Bobbi hears the tinge of anger veined through her name. She waits a beat, and watches Izzy’s eyes harden as she realises what she intends to do. She was always sharp like that. 

Her best friend swipes the keyring out of her hands, eyes darting down only for a split second before glaring at her. “He’s gonna be pissed, you know that?”  _‘And so am I’_  is left unspoken.

Under different circumstances, she might’ve laughed; Izzy was as bad as she was at saying goodbyes. It was one of the things they’d bonded over: their love of a good fight, their intolerance for all things mushy, and their inability to say their goodbyes. They’d gone for their friends’ funerals together, standing solemnly at the back, two feet apart, far enough for each other to grieve and close enough to be a rock. Now she was making Izzy go for hers, alone.  _You’ll have Hunter_ , she thinks, but deep down she knows he would never go for her funeral, would never believe she was well and truly dead.  _Oh, Lance_.

“Yeah,” she forces out, giving a jerky nod and clenching her fist against the tears.  _I’m sorry_ , she communicates silently to Izzy, and she almost smiles when the brunette brushes past her shaking her head.  _Goodbye Iz._

It was funny, the way moments went by. She could have said goodbye to Hunter that morning. She could have lingered in bed, his arm strewn carelessly over her waist, her head pillowed on his chest, their legs tangled together beneath the covers; could have listened to his heart beat under her ear and let his breath tickle her cheek. She could have woken him up, slowly, and watched the smile spread over his features like it always did when he woke and she was still there. She could have made love to him, memorised the way he felt in her, hoarded up the memory of how he held her, maybe told him not to die out there even though they were both in bed.

All she has instead is the voicemail from him playing on loop in her head, and she’s lucky she has that, she reminds herself. She swallows once, twice; looks up at the ceiling and blinks away the burn of tears. Yeah, lucky.

Her lips twist in a bitter smile and she returns to reality, this one last thing she would do before expiring.

All the while his voice, his laugh, is in her head.

_Hey sweetheart. I’ll see you tonight love, don’t die out there._

Oh Lance. I am so, so, sorry.

**Author's Note:**

> Slightly AoS non-compliant, because Mack was on the ship all along I think  
> Fills the tumblr prompt from Caitlin: things you said when you thought I wasn't listening.  
> Didn't write this specifically for the prompt, but it fit, and eh. 
> 
> Wrote this because I saw a gif of Bobbi’s expression the other day and it broke (breaks) my heart. 
> 
> Sorry for the lack of updates, I started work, and I do have a number of fics in progress/ are half-written.  
> And apologies if this was somewhat rusty..! :(


End file.
